


In the Gentlest Kinda Way

by Snapjack



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Alternate Timelines, Daryl Dixon/Rick Grimes Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2020-03-02 08:59:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18807940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snapjack/pseuds/Snapjack
Summary: As it turns out, there ain't no cure, not exactly. What there is, eventually, is a vaccine.





	In the Gentlest Kinda Way

As it turns out, there ain't no cure, not exactly. What there is, eventually, is a vaccine. It's a prenatal vaccine, which weirds Daryl out a little (how can doctors tell what the hell they're sticking when they're all... up in there) but it works, and that's what's important. Too late for everyone who's infected, which is everyone, in a manner a speaking--when they die, they'll hafta be put down--but right on time for all their babies.  The virus will die with Daryl's generation, assuming someone takes care of their bodies before they can bite nobody. These days, the only walkers they find are people who died on accident, or people who died alone and were too goddamn inconsiderate to shoot themselves at the end. Make someone discover them after the turn, maybe the wrong way. Daryl can't understand how could anyone get to be such a asshole that they'd do that to someone they don't even know. Specially now, when there's so few people left to hate. Before the world turnt, everyone was all up in each other's business. Daryl didn't exactly understand assholes then, but he could kinda sympathize. Now, it's not like you have to see anyone at all, you don't want to. You want a mansion, you go find one, plant your garden. God be with you. You want an apartment in Manhattan, good luck huntin' in that shit. You want to live on top of a goddamn pyramid, ain't no one gonna tell you no, cept maybe the Egyptians who probably wouldn't want people clambering all over they historical shit regardless a how few they is to clamber. 

Daryl himself personally didn't end up wanting a mansion, not really. None a the survivors did, really, in the end. He slep in a few, but could never really escape the feeling that living in one made him a asshole, one of those king-of-the-world types who'd just been waiting for everything to go to shit so that the world matched their level a ugly. And there weren't many of those types left. Because after the first few years, when most everybody was dead, and after the second few years, when all the murderous assholes was dead too from murderin' each other, and after the third few years when mosta the people dying was dying on accident from stupid shitty bad luck--cave-ins, epidemics, pockets a new fresh walkers from cave-ins and epidemics--the frequency of people dying dropped way off. Cause the thing is, walkers degrade. Tissue falls apart. Nothing on a walker repairs itself, and so in a few years damn thing is covered in moss and roots, harmless as a bad mushroom in a forest if it don't bite nobody new. Walk past it, don't stick your bare foot in that weakass jaw, you'll be fine. Daryl smashes a skull when he finds it, just in case, as a public service. All the survivors hang jangle chains a tin cans and hubcaps around their houses and through the woods. Everyone clears a room when they enter it, real quick and polite-like; everyone expects you to come in careful and noisy; no one minds when you take a few turns around the room first before you sit down. Nobody puts chairs where you gotta sit with your back to the door. Porch sitting, with your back against the wall and a clear view a the yard, is real popular. 

And that's where Daryl is tonight, sitting with his back up gainst the wall on Rick's front porch, looking all down the hillside to the river as the sun sets. Time was, people woulda said the last thing they wanted after all this was over was to see more a the same people they survived with. Time came, no one felt that way. He and Michonne and Rick and Carol is _all_ up in each other's business, in the gentlest kinda way. They have four houses strung down the hillside, and the highest one up is Rick's, but the distinction a ownership is pretty thin, cause they spend all day goin' to see each other, droppin' off vegetables, meat, eggs. Comin' by to repair this an' that. Checkin' in. Touchin' faces and shoulders every time they see each other, even though it's almost never been more'n a few hours. Him and Rick are the worst, can't hardly never see each other athout Rick puts his hand up on Daryl's face and just _beams_ at him, and Daryl tells him, brother, leanin' out and clapping him around the backa the shoulders if they're over a fence or something. Was a time, way back, Daryl woulda had a concern over how it looked. Now he just soaks it up like warm sunshine, Rick reachin' out when they're sitting like this on his front porch, putting a hand on Daryl's shoulder, not even looking, just to know it's there. Every time he does he smiles like it's a big accomplishment, he and Daryl here today, looking out over the river. He does cause it is. Only bigger accomplishment is Carl, who lives downriver about a day's walk with Tyreese'n them in the new capital. Carl comes home every month and every month they throw a party, Rick beamin' like he hung the moon, arm around Carl's shoulders for three straight days and everyone drinking and partying and dancing and askin Carl endless questions about his job and his girlfriends and his house like he's their son too, which he kinda is, but in terms of accomplishments, he's Rick's. Rick kept Carl alive, kept Carl safe, kept that promise. Couldn't keep Judith, but that weren't Rick's fault, and it were nothing any a them coulda ever seen coming. Who develops a heart condition at sixteen. Plain bad ugly luck. There's a grave out back, and sometimes they gotta fold Rick up together, all spendin' the night sitting up on his porch with him, warding it all off. Tonight, though, it's just Rick and him. Carol can be heard busyin' around in her place. Cannin' season. Michonne is out on her porch, sippin' water. She waves and goes in for the night, and Rick reaches over and puts his hand on Daryl's shoulder one more time. Daryl knows without looking the smile that's there, cause he got it, too, taking him over and easing him down in the gentlest kinda way. 

 


End file.
